OTTAWA — Stephen Harper will become the first Canadian prime minister in nearly 70 years to address the British Parliament when he speaks to MPs and members of the House of Lords on Thursday.

Harper, aboard his freshly painted government jet, departs Tuesday for an eight-day European trip that will take him to London to address the British Parliament, as well as to France and Ireland for bilateral meetings, before culminating with the G8 summit on June 17-18 in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland.

The European tour comes as Canadian diplomats around the world go on strike — including in London and Paris — and look to disrupt Harper’s travel plans, although federal officials insist there will be no hiccups to his schedule.

Anti-oilsands protests in London, planned to coincide with Harper’s speech to the British Parliament, may also prove an unwelcome distraction for the government.

Harper will join a very exclusive list of world leaders and heads of state to speak to the U.K. Parliament, and will be the first Canadian prime minister to do so since William Lyon Mackenzie King on May 11, 1944 — only four weeks before the D-Day invasion of the Second World War.

He will address members of the House of Commons and House of Lords in the Queen’s Robing Room, which is located in the Palace of Westminster. The Robing Room dates from 1834 and is where foreign leaders are sometimes invited to speak (the room is primarily used to dress the Queen in ceremonial robes and the crown for the opening of Parliament).

Harper will also participate in a private meeting with Queen Elizabeth and hold a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“We’ll be celebrating the close ties and values that bind us and look forward to how we can use those values to tackle the challenges that face us now in the world,” Andrew MacDougall, the prime minister’s spokesman, said about the upcoming 30-minute speech.

Since 1939, there have been only 49 addresses to both houses of the British Parliament, including in recent years from President Barack Obama, Burmese opposition leader and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi and Pope Benedict XVI, according to U.K. House of Commons records.

Harper and Cameron will get a lot of face time together over the next week.

The British prime minister is hosting the meeting of leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United States and United Kingdom.

The G8 summit in Northern Ireland will focus on three main themes: advancing international free trade; ensuring tax compliance and combatting tax evasion; and promoting greater transparency for governments and corporations.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said Harper is happy to head to Europe and flee the House of Commons for the rest of the spring sitting to avoid the Senate expenses scandal enveloping his government.

Harper’s European trip, while planned for months, is part of the government’s “wash, rinse and spin cycle, trying to get everything off of what has been happening for the past couple of weeks,” Mulcair said.

The invitation for Harper to speak to the British Parliament comes after Cameron addressed Canadian members of Parliament and senators in the House of Commons in September 2011.

Cameron, during his speech, urged European leaders to follow Canada’s lead in getting their fiscal houses in order by taking decisive action to tackle the deficit and debt crisis that was sweeping across Europe.

He also trumpeted Canada’s and Britain’s historic partnership, one that has seemingly grown stronger in recent years.

“The relationship between Britain and Canada is deep and strong,” Cameron said at the time. “We are two nations, but under one Queen and united by one set of values.”

Canada’s House of Commons and Senate earlier this year passed a bill that assents to changes in the royal rules of succession.

With the bill, Canada agreed to U.K. legislative changes to longstanding laws governing who can ascend the throne.

Under the new legislation, a first-born female could become the monarch, rather than step aside for the oldest son in the family, while also removing provisions that rendered heirs who married Roman Catholics ineligible to succeed to the throne.

The Harper government has aggressively promoted and rekindled Canada’s ties to the monarchy as part of a broader royal rebrand.

It has mandated a portrait of the Queen hang in all Canadian embassies around the world, reinstituted “Royal” in the names of the Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Navy, and launched Queen Elizabeth diamond jubilee celebrations across Canada to mark the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.

Senior Parliament Hill reporter for the Ottawa Citizen, politics junkie, wannabe pro golfer and someone who has wordsmithed at newspapers in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan. I've covered politics at... read more every level, including city hall in Ottawa and Calgary, the Alberta legislature in Edmonton and now back in Ottawa covering the Hill.View author's profile